Increasing pay-per-use credit associated with guest room in response to notification message tracking usage of service offered by hospitality establishment

ABSTRACT

A hospitality establishment includes guest rooms having media devices installed therein. Each guest room has one or more in-room media devices for providing a pay-per-use media function. A media system controller dynamically associates a credit corresponding to a monetary value with a particular guest room in response to an occurrence of a first event, configures an in-room media device of the particular guest room to indicate the credit associated with the particular guest room and allow a guest of the particular guest room to utilize at least an amount of the credit toward an order of the pay-per-use media function, activates the pay-per-use media function on at least one of the in-room media devices of the particular guest room in response to a received order, and decreases the credit associated with the particular guest room according to the amount of the credit utilized toward the received order.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/972,671 filed Aug. 21, 2013, which is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 13/220,912 filed Aug. 30, 2011. Both of theseapplications are incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

(1) Field of the Invention

The invention pertains generally to hospitality media and entertainmentsystems. More particularly, the invention relates to hospitality mediasystems that provide pay-per-use media functions in guest rooms of ahospitality establishment.

(2) Description of the Related Art

Free-to-guest entertainment media content such as television withinguest rooms is generally provided by hospitality establishments such ashotels to meet guests' basic in-room entertainment expectations. Forexample, a hotel may purchase rights to distribute cable and/orsatellite television channels to the guest rooms. Rights to satelliteradio content or other multi-media content may also be purchased by thehotel and made available in the guest rooms.

Although free-to-guest entertainment options are well received byguests, the hotel does incur costs to provide these services andtherefore there are limits on the amount of in-room content that can beprovided for free. If a hotel wishes to provide increased free mediacontent options to guests, the hotel must either incur the additionallicensing costs, or raise room rates or other service fees to cover theadditional licensing costs.

Pay-per-use systems have also been developed for use in hotelsincluding, for example, pay-per-view (PPV) for live sporting events andvideo-on-demand (VOD) for feature Hollywood movies. In addition toallowing hotels to provide highly desirable content for guest viewing,pay-per-use often becomes a secondary revenue stream for the hotel. Thereason is the hotel may add an additional, hidden fee onto the royaltycost of the content. For example, each time a guest pays $11.99 to watchan in-room VOD movie, the hotel may keep $5.99 as profit and pay a $6.00royalty to the content provider. Pay-per-use systems are generally moreexpensive for the hotel to install and support than free-to-guestofferings due to the interactive nature and requirement to bill guestsin real time.

Although pay-per-use systems are routinely used by some guests, the samesystems are often shunned by other guests who have an aversion toadditional in-room usage fees. The result is that a hotel makes aconsiderable investment to install a pay-per-use system while asignificant number of the hotel's guests do not utilize the pay-per-usemedia functions and therefore see no initial direct benefit. Over timethe increased revenue from the pay-per-use system may allow the hotel toexpand its free-to-guest offerings; however, in the short term, theopposite may be true—that is, the hotel may need to avoid expanding oreven reduce the free-to-guest offerings in order to lessen theinstallation and reoccurring support costs of the pay-per-use system.This further detracts from the experience of guests who are notinterested in trying out the pay-per-use system because of theadditional usage fees.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to an exemplary embodiment of the invention there is discloseda system for use at a hospitality establishment having a plurality ofguest rooms. The system includes a plurality of devices for installationin the guest rooms such that each guest room has one or more in-roomdevices for providing functions therein, the functions including atleast a pay-per-use function. The system further includes a systemcontroller for performing data communications with the devices andoperable to dynamically associate a credit corresponding to a monetaryvalue with a particular guest room in response to a guest checking in tothe particular guest room. The system controller is further operable todynamically increase the credit associated with the particular guestroom in response to receiving a notification message tracking usage of aservice offered at the hospitality establishment with respect to theparticular guest room. The system controller is further operable toconfigure an in-room device of the particular guest room to indicate thecredit associated with the particular guest room and allow the guest ofthe particular guest room to utilize at least an amount of the credittoward an order of the pay-per-use function. The system controller isfurther operable to activate the pay-per-use function on at least one ofthe in-room devices of the particular guest room in response to areceived order, and decrease the credit associated with the particularguest room according to the amount of the credit utilized toward thereceived order.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there isdisclosed a method of controlling a plurality of devices at ahospitality establishment having a plurality of guest rooms. Each guestroom has one or more in-room devices for providing functions therein.The functions include at least a pay-per-use function. The methodincludes dynamically associating a credit corresponding to a monetaryvalue with a particular guest room in response to a guest checking in tothe particular guest room, and dynamically increasing the creditassociated with the particular guest room in response to receiving anotification message tracking usage of a service offered at thehospitality establishment with respect to the particular guest room. Themethod further includes configuring an in-room device of the particularguest room to indicate the credit associated with the particular guestroom, allowing the guest of the particular guest room to utilize atleast an amount of the credit toward an order of the pay-per-usefunction, activating the pay-per-use function on at least one of thein-room devices of the particular guest room in response to a receivedorder, and decreasing the credit associated with the particular guestroom according to the amount of the credit utilized toward the receivedorder.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there isdisclosed a system controller for controlling a plurality of devices ata hospitality establishment having a plurality of guest rooms. Eachguest room has one or more in-room devices for providing functionstherein. The functions include at least a pay-per-use function. Thesystem controller includes one or more processors configured todynamically associate a credit corresponding to a monetary value with aparticular guest room in response to a guest checking in to theparticular guest room, and dynamically increase the credit associatedwith the particular guest room in response to receiving a notificationmessage tracking usage of a service offered at the hospitalityestablishment with respect to the particular guest room. The one or moreprocessors are further configured to configure an in-room device of theparticular guest room to indicate the credit associated with theparticular guest room, and allow the guest of the particular guest roomto utilize at least an amount of the credit toward an order of thepay-per-use function. The one or more processors are further configuredto activate the pay-per-use function on at least one of the in-roomdevices of the particular room in response to a received order, anddecrease the credit associated with the particular guest room accordingto the amount of the credit utilized toward the received order.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the invention the notificationmessage indicates that a complimentary service such as towel exchange orbreakfast offered at the hospitality establishment was declined for theparticular guest room.

According another exemplary embodiment of the invention the notificationmessage indicates that a profit generating service such as room serviceor a spa package offered at the hospitality establishment has beenbilled to the particular guest room.

These and other embodiments and advantages of the invention will becomeapparent from the following detailed description, taken in conjunctionwith the accompanying drawings, illustrating by way of example theprinciples of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention will be described in greater detail with reference to theaccompanying drawings which represent preferred embodiments thereof.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a media system for providing mediafunctions in guest rooms of a hospitality establishment according to anexemplary configuration of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart describing exemplary operations performed by themedia system controller of FIG. 1 when controlling the media devices inthe various guest rooms of the hospitality establishment.

FIG. 3 is an example of the room credit table of FIG. 1 utilized toallow the media system controller to associate a room-specific creditwith each of the guest rooms of the hospitality establishment.

FIG. 4 is an example of the media device table of FIG. 1 allowing themedia system controller to determine network addresses of the mediadevices of the particular room needing to be configured.

FIG. 5 is a user interface (UI) screen as presented by an in-room STBindicating the credit associated with the particular guest room andallowing the guest to utilize at least an amount of the credit toward apay-per-use video-on-demand (VOD) order according to an exemplaryconfiguration of the invention.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of the PMS credit events table of FIG. 1showing sample PMS notification messages that correspond to creditincrease events.

FIG. 7 is a first example of the pay-per-use history table of FIG. 1that may be utilized for documenting pay-per-use VOD orders.

FIG. 8 is a second example of the pay-per-use history table of FIG. 1that may be utilized for documenting pay-per-use VOD orders.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a media system 100 for providing mediafunctions in guest rooms 102 of a hospitality establishment 104according to an exemplary configuration of the invention. In thisconfiguration, the hospitality establishment 104 is a lodgingestablishment such as a hotel or resort having a plurality of mediadevices 106 installed in various guest rooms 102. Examples of the mediadevices 106 include set-top boxes (STBs), televisions (TVs), otherdisplay screens such as projectors, room control boxes that provideeffects in the guest rooms 102 such as special ambient lighting anddynamic temperature control, speakers and other audio systems, videogaming consoles, and gambling machines and casino games. Other types ofmedia devices 106 may also be used in other configurations.

Each guest room 102 has one or more media devices 106 installed therein,and the media devices 106 are coupled to a media system controller 108through a media network 110 such as a wired or wireless local areanetwork (LAN) installed at the hotel.

In-room media functions provided by the media devices 106 at leastinclude a pay-per-use media function, for example, pay-per-view (PPV) oflive events, video-on-demand (VOD) of Hollywood movies, and/orpay-per-play (PPP) of video and/or casino games. Although VOD and PPPare utilized to illustrate advantageous features of the invention in thefollowing description, other types of pay-per-use media functions mayalso be utilized in conjunction with the invention according to thespecific requirements and/or target guests of the hospitalityestablishment 104.

As shown in FIG. 1, the media system 100 further includes a databasestorage device 112 and a property management system (PMS) 114 bothcoupled to the media system controller 108. The database storage device112 stores tables of a database that is a structured set of datautilized by the media system controller 108 including a room credittable 114, a media device table 116, a PMS credit events table 118, anda pay-per-use history table 120. The PMS 114 processes messages receivedby controllers of guest service systems at the hospitality establishment104 such as, in this example, a spa service controller 122 and a roomservice controller 124, and sends corresponding notification messages tothe media system controller 108.

In this example one or more external content providers 126 and userprofile servers 128 are coupled to the media system controller 108 via awide area network such as the Internet 130. Each content provider 126provides content to the hospitality establishment 104 such as bystreaming media assets to the media system controller 108, and each userprofile server 128 stores a number of user profiles 132 havingpreferences and settings of different users such as may be tracked in acustomer loyalty program.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart describing exemplary operations performed by themedia system controller 108 of FIG. 1 when controlling the media devices106 in the various guest rooms 102. In this configuration, the mediasystem controller 108 is implemented as a computer server and includesone or more processors 134 configured to operate pursuant to softwareinstructions (not shown) to perform communications with and control themedia devices 106 according to the process described by the flowchart ofFIG. 2. The steps of the flowchart are not restricted to the exact ordershown, and, in other configurations, shown steps may be omitted or otherintermediate steps added.

The process begins at step 200 in response to an occurrence of a firstevent such as a new guest checking in to a particular guest room 102 ofthe hospitality establishment 104. The process may begin in response toother types of first events such as when a new guest of a room logs intoor begins utilizing a media device 104, purchases credit on an in-roommedia device 104, or when a guest changes from a first room 102 to asecond, different room 102, for example. Taking room check-in as anexample, upon the guest checking in to the particular guest room 102,the media system controller 108 retrieves, at step 202, a user profile132 corresponding to the guest from the user profile server 128 andassociates, at step 204, an initial credit at least including any creditstored on the user profile 132 with the particular room 102 in which theguest has checked in.

The media system controller 108 may correlate the identity of the guestwith the guest's corresponding user profile 132 according to a useridentifier such as the guest's name, user number, login or sign-oncredentials, loyalty program number, or other information. For example,the user identification information may be received from the guestduring a reservation process, may be recorded by front desk staff duringthe check-in process, or may be automatically detected or received bythe media system controller 108 or another component of the media system100 when the guest begins utilizing one of the media devices 106 theparticular guest room 102.

As will be further described below, in an advantageous configuration,the initial credit associated with the particular guest room 102 isactually increased by the media system controller 109 so that it isgreater than the credit stored on the user profile 132. In this way, theguest's stored credit may gradually build up each time they check into ahospitality establishment 104 participating in a loyalty program offeredby the user profile server 128.

FIG. 3 is an example of the room credit table 144 of FIG. 1 utilized toallow the media system controller 108 to associate a room-specificcredit with each of the guest rooms 102 of the hospitality establishment104. In this example, room credit table 144 includes the followingcolumns:

Column 300—Room identifier: Stores a room identifier (ID). In thisexample, each of the guest rooms 102 of the hotel has an ID number beingthe room number; however, other types of room identifier's may also beutilized in other configurations such as a unique label or name of theroom, or an indication of the room's location such as floor number androom position, for example.

Column 302—Periodic credit increase: Stores a credit entitlement to beperiodically added to the room identified by column 300 of the same row.In this example, the credit associated with each room is increased dailyas long as the guest stays checked in, and the amount of the increasedepends upon either a category of the room 102 or a category of theguest checked in to the room 102. By changing the values in column 302,the media system controller 108 may adjust the amount of the dailycredit entitlement for each room accordingly. For example, a guest room102 corresponding to a presidential suite may be entitled to a higherperiodic credit increase than a budget guest room 102. Likewise, a guestwho is a member of a VIP loyalty program staying in a particular room102 may be entitled to a higher periodic credit increase than asubsequent guest who is not a member of the VIP loyalty program stayingin the same room 102. In another example, the periodic credit increasemay be higher for certain rooms 102 in order to compensate these roomsfor noise or other disturbances of ongoing repairs. The credit increasevalues of column 302 may also be increased and decreased globally acrossall rooms such as when the hotel management wants to offer largerperiodic credit increase during the off season, for example.

Column 304—Next periodic credit add time: Stores a date/time valueindicating when the next periodic credit increase of column 302 shouldbe applied for each room. In this example, the daily credit increaseoccurs every twenty-four hours after the time the guest checked in tothe particular guest room 102. A benefit of tying the periodic creditadd time to the guest's actual check-in time is to avoid double periodicincreases during a single period, which may occur if the periodicincrease for all rooms occurs at a designated time such as midnight. Anadvantage of each room having its own next periodic credit add timevalue in column 304 is that it allows the credit increase period foreach room to be individually adjusted. For example, certain types ofrooms 102 may have credit increases applied hourly whereas other typesof rooms 102 may have credit increases applied daily.

Column 306—Current credit: Stores the amount of credit currentlyassociated with the guest room 102 identified by column 300 of the samerow.

Continuing the description of step 204 of FIG. 2, the media systemcontroller 108 may firstly find the row having the room identifier ofthe particular room 102 in which the guest has just checked in, and thenadjust the “Current credit” value of column 306 of the same row to bethe sum of the stored credit on the guest's user profile 132 and theperiodic credit increase amount specified on column 302 according to theroom type. In this way, when a new guest checks in to the hospitalityestablishment 104, the guest's registered room 102 is associated with acurrent credit being the particular room's daily credit entitlement plusany saved credit on the guest's personal guest profile 132. Should theguest not have a user profile 132 or should the guest's user profile 132have no saved credit, the guest's registered room 102 receives a currentcredit being only the particular room's daily credit entitlement. Inthis way, the guest's saved credit is allowed to build up simply bychecking in to an additional hospitality establishment 104. This isbeneficial to encourage the guest to select hospitality establishments104 participating in a same loyalty program offered by the user profileserver 128, for example.

After associating the credit with the particular guest room 102, themedia system controller 108 configures at least one of the in-room mediadevices 106 of the particular guest room 102 to indicate the creditcurrently associated with the particular guest room 102 and to allow theguest of the particular guest room 102 to utilize at least an amount ofthe credit toward an order of a pay-per-use media function provided bythe media devices 106 of the particular room 102.

Only one of the media devices 106 of the particular guest room 102 mayneed to be configured such as an in-room STB that acts as a controlpoint within the particular guest 102 room. Alternatively, multiplemedia devices 106 of the particular guest room 102 may be configured atstep 204 such as both an in-room STB and a gaming console. In this way,the guest staying in the particular room 102 may utilize the creditassociated with the particular room toward both pay-per-use VOD and PPPmedia functions.

To perform the configuration, the media system controller 108 maylook-up in a database which media devices 106 provide pay-per-use mediafunctions in the particular guest room 102 and then send configurationcommands to these media devices 106 via the media network 110.

FIG. 4 is an example of the media device table 116 of FIG. 1 allowingthe media system controller 108 to determine network addresses of themedia devices 106 of the particular room 102 needing to be configured.The media device table 116 in this example includes the followingcolumns:

Column 400—Room number: Stores a room identifier (ID) similar to asdescribed above for column 300 of FIG. 3.

Column 402—Media device type: Stores a type of the media device 106 towhich the row pertains. In this example STBs and gaming consoles areillustrated; however, room and network address information other typesof media devices 106 may also be stored in table 116 in a similarfashion.

Column 404—IP address: Stores the private internet protocol (IP) addressof the media device 106 in the guest room 102 to which the row pertains.

In an example usage of tables 114 and 116 at step 204, in response to anoccurrence of first event such as when a new guest checks in to room#101 (e.g., having room identifier “101”), the media system controller108 updates the room credit table 114 so the “Current credit” column 304for room #101 associates the guest's total credit ($7.99 in thisexample) with room #101 and updates the next periodic credit add timecolumn 306 for room #101 to be twenty-four hours after the guest'scheck-in time (next credit to be added at “2011/06/01 14:56” in thisexample). The controller 108 then sends configuration commands to the IPaddresses of the STB and gaming console in room #101 as looked-up inmedia device table 116. The configuration commands cause the STB andgaming console in room #101 to indicate the current credit ($7.99)associated with room #101 and to allow the guest of room #101 to utilizeat least an amount of the credit toward an order of a pay-per-usefunction provided by these media devices.

FIG. 5 is a user interface (UI) screen 500 as presented by an in-roomSTB indicating the credit associated with the particular guest room 102(“Room #101” in this example) and allowing the guest to utilize at leastan amount of the credit toward a pay-per-use VOD order according to anexemplary configuration of the invention.

As illustrated, the UI screen 500 includes an indication 502 of thecredit currently associated with the guest room 102 in which the user iscurrently check in. The guest may select between three pay-per-use VODmovies 504, 506, 508 and the STB allows the guest to utilize at least anamount of the indicated credit 502 toward a movie order. For example, anaction movie 504 has a regular price exceeding the room's associatedcredit and therefore the full amount of the indicated credit 502 may beutilized toward the order of the action movie 504. A children's movie506 has a regular price being less than the room's associated credit andtherefore only some of the room's credit needs to be utilized to coverthe full price of the children's movie 506. A sports movie 508 has arequired royalty amount ($6.00 in this example) that must be paid infull by the guest and therefore only a portion of the room's credit maybe utilized toward the order of the sports movie 508. More details oflimiting the amount of the credit that can be utilized according torequired royalty payments of certain media assets is provided later inthis description.

Continuing the description of the flowchart of FIG. 2, at steps 206 and208 the media system controller 108 checks for an occurrence of a secondevent associated with the particular guest room 102.

In particular, at step 206, the media system controller 108 checkswhether a periodic credit increase event for the particular guest room102 has occurred. In an exemplary configuration, the periodic creditincrease event automatically occurs once every predetermined time periodwhile the guest remains checked in to the particular guest room 102. Aspreviously described with respect to column 304 of FIG. 3, when theguest rooms 102 are registered to guests on a daily basis, the periodiccredit increase event may be configured to automatically occur everytwenty-four hours after the guest first checked in to the particularguest room 102. Other predetermined time periods such as every day at adesignated time (e.g., at midnight) or with periods other thantwenty-four hours may also be utilized in other configurations.

In order to check whether a periodic credit increase event for theparticular guest room 102 has occurred at step 208, the media systemcontroller 108 may search the room credit table 114 to determine if thevalue of the “Next period credit add time” column 403 on the rowcorresponding to the particular guest room 102 has exceeded the currentdate/time. When the periodic credit increase event for the particularguest room 102 has occurred, control proceeds to step 210; otherwise,control proceeds to step 208.

At step 208, the media system controller 108 checks whether any othercredit increase events have occurred for the particular guest room 102.In this configuration, other credit increase events automatically occurin response to messages received from the PMS 114. For example, the PMS114 may automatically send a notification message to the media systemcontroller 108 when the guest of the particular guest room 102 utilizes(and/or declines to utilize) services offered at the hospitalityestablishment 104.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of the PMS credit events table 118 of FIG.1 showing sample PMS notification messages that correspond to creditincrease events at step 208. The hospitality establishment 104 mayalready have an operating PMS 114 for tracking service usage; therefore,it may be easy and low cost for the media system controller 108 toreceive notification messages from the PMS 114. The columns of the PMScredit events table 118 in this example include:

Column 500—PMS message code: Stores an identifier of the type of the PMSnotification message. Although the code is illustrated as a short formdescriptive phrase to facilitate understanding, in actualimplementations the code may another type of PMS-message typeidentifier.

Column 502—Description of service utilized or declined: Stores adescriptive explanation of when the notification message will be sent bythe PMS 114.

Column 504—Credit increase: Stores the amount of the credit increasethat will be applied to the particular guest room 102 to which the PMSnotification message pertains.

In this example, the first three message rows illustrate PMS messagecodes (“Spa-booking-1”, “Spa-booking-2”, and “Room-service-ordered”)that are sent by the PMS 114 when the guest of one of the guest rooms102 utilizes a service at the hospitality establishment 104. Each ofthese services are profit generating and therefore, in response toreceiving one of these notification messages, the media systemcontroller increases the credit associated with the guest's registeredroom by the amount indicated in the “Credit increase” column 604 on thecorresponding row of table 118. Increasing the credit associated withthe particular guest room 102 of a guest who has utilized a profitgenerating service offered at the hospitality establishment 104 isadvantageous to both encourage guests to use these services and toreward guests when they do utilize these services.

For example, when a guest staying in room #101 purchases a deluxe spapackage, the guest may indicate their particular guest room number(i.e., room #101) during the purchase process. The Spa servicecontroller 122 then posts a room charge to bill the guest's room for theamount of the deluxe spa package, and the PMS 114 sends a notificationmessage (“Spa-booking-2” in this example) to the media system controller108. The result at step 208 of FIG. 2 is therefore affirmative and themedia system controller 108 therefore proceeds to step 210 to increasethe credit associated with room #101 by the amount indicated in the“Credit increase” column 604 ($12.99 in this example). The amount of thecredit increase may be a percentage of the profit or revenue received bythe hospitality establishment 104 for the use of the service.

The next three message rows of table 118 illustrate PMS message codes(“Sheet-exchange-declined”, “Towel-exchange-declined”,“Complimentary-breakfast-declined”) that are sent by the PMS 114 whenthe guest of one of the guest rooms 102 declines to utilize a service atthe hospitality establishment 104. In this example, although offeredcomplimentary to the guest, each of these services are paid for by thehospitality establishment 104 such as labor and laundry costs ofexchanging sheets and towels, and labor and food costs for providing theguest with a complimentary breakfast. By increasing the creditassociated with the guest's registered room when the guest declines toutilize these complimentary services, the hospitality establishment 104saves money that it would have otherwise (perhaps unnecessarily) spent.An advantage of this functionality is that guests are rewarded forreducing the costs of the hospitality establishment 104.

For example, when a guest staying in room #101 declines towel exchangesuch as by making a decline selection on a menu presented on the in-roomSTB or when room service personnel input information that the guest didnot place the towels in the bathtub to signal they need to be exchanged,the room service controller 124 may thereafter post a notificationmessage to the PMS 114 indicating that the towels were not changed inroom #101. The PMS 114 then sends a corresponding notification message(“Towel-exchange-declined” in this example) to the media systemcontroller 108 indicating room #101. The result at step 208 of FIG. 2 istherefore affirmative and the media system controller 108 proceeds tostep 210 to increase the credit associated with room #101 by the amountindicated in the “Credit increase” column 604 ($1.50 in this example).This amount may be a percentage of the cost savings to the hospitalityestablishment 104 by not providing the service declined by the guest.

The media system controller 108 may also recognize other types of creditincrease events at step 208. For example, when the guest in theparticular guest room 102 orders a full priced movie without using anycredit this may also constitute a credit increase event. In this way,guests are encouraged to order another movie afterwards in order to makeuse of the credit. Credit may also be added to the user as a percentageof the amount that was actually billed to the user when ordering aservice at the hospitality establishment. In this way, the more servicesutilized and revenue received from a guest, the more credit that will beassociated with the guest's particular guest room 102. The creditincrease event detected at this step may also occur when a guestpurchases an amount credit on an in-room media device 104.

Upon the occurrence of one of the above-described second events, at step210 the media system controller 108 increases the credit associated withthe particular guest room 102 and reconfigures the in-room mediadevice(s) 106 of the particular guest room 102 to indicate the increasedcredit.

At step 212, the media system controller 108 checks whether an order ofa pay-per-use media function has been received for the particular room102. For example, the guest staying in room #101 may order a VOD movieby selecting one of the available movies 504, 506, 508 on the UI screen500 illustrated in FIG. 5. Upon selection of a movie 504, 506, 508, theSTB then sends an order message to the media system controller 108 viathe media network 110. When a new order of the pay-per-use mediafunction for the particular guest room 102 has been received, controlproceeds to step 214; otherwise, control proceeds to step 224.

At step 214, in response to the received order, the media systemcontroller 108 decreases the credit associated with the particular guestroom 102 according to the amount of the credit that was utilized towardthe received order. In one configuration, the credit associated with theparticular guest room 102 is decreased by exactly the amount of creditthat was utilized toward the order. For example, when the received ordercorrespond to the action movie 504 of FIG. 5, the credit associated withroom #101 is deceased by $7.99 so the room is left with $0.00.Similarly, when the received order corresponds to the children's movie506, the credit associated with room #101 is decreased by $6.99 so theroom is left with $1.00, and when the received order corresponds to thesports movie 508, the credit associated with room #101 is decreased by$5.99 so the room is left with $2.00.

In another configuration, the credit associated with the particularguest room 102 is decreased by an amount not equal to the amount ofcredit utilized. This may occur when the hospitality establishment 104offers an automatic credit increase proportional to the amount the guestwas billed for the order. For example, a hospitality establishment 104may offer 20% of billed amounts back to the guest as in-room credit. Inthis case, if a guest utilizes a credit of $6.00 when ordering a moviehaving a full price of $12.00, the guest is billed for the remaining$6.00 and therefore receives 20% of this amount being a credit increaseof $1.20. Rather than performing the credit decrease and credit increasein two separate operations, by taking into account the amount of creditutilized by the guest to determine the remaining portion that must bebilled, the media system controller 108 determines the amount of thecredit decrease in this example to be $4.80, which provides a credit of$1.20 to the particular guest room 102 in response to the receivedorder. The same 20% credit back functionality may operate in a similarway according to other billed amounts in addition to (or instead of) VODmovie orders.

After decreasing the credit associated with the particular room 102according to the amount of the credit utilized toward the receivedorder, the media system controller 108 then reconfigures the mediadevice(s) of the particular guest room 102 to indicate the decreasedcredit for future orders of the pay-per-use media function. Thereconfiguration may be done in the same way as previously described forstep 204.

At step 216, the media system controller 108 determines whether theamount of credit utilized toward the received order covers the fullprice of the ordered pay-per-use media function. When the creditutilized is insufficient to cover the full price, which is the case whenthe guest orders either the action movie 504 or the sports movie 508 inthe example illustrated in FIG. 5, control proceeds to step 218.Alternatively, when the credit utilized was sufficient to cover the fullprice, which is the case when the guest orders the children's movie 506,control proceeds to step 220.

At step 218, because the amount of the credit utilized toward thereceived order is less than the price of the ordered pay-per-use mediafunction, the media system controller 108 initiates billing of the guestby applying a billing amount equal to the price minus the amount ofcredit utilized. For example, when the guest orders the action movie 504illustrated in FIG. 5, billing may be initiated by sending a room chargepost message for room #101 from the media system controller 108 to thePMS 114 in the amount of $4.96. Likewise, when the guest orders thesports movie 508 illustrated in FIG. 5, billing may be initiated bysending a room charge post message for room #101 from the media systemcontroller 108 to the PMS 114 in the amount of $6.00.

At step 220, the media system controller 108 documents the receivedorder. Documenting the received order may be a requirement of thecontent provider 126 in order to calculate and/or confirm the requiredroyalty payment. For example, VOD royalties are often calculated on aper playback basis as a percentage such as 50% of the actual amountcharged to the guest for playback, where the minimum royalty may also belimited to be not less than a predetermined minimum such as $6.00 perplayback even when 50% of the amount charged to the guest wouldotherwise be less.

FIG. 7 is a first example of the pay-per-use history table 120 of FIG. 1that may be utilized for documenting pay-per-use VOD orders. In thisexample, the credit periodically added to a guest room is built-in tothe price of the guest room and the other credit increases alsocorrespond to either additional profit or savings enjoyed by thehospitality establishment 104 when the other credit increases areapplied. The columns of the pay-per-use history table 120 in thisexample include:

Column 700—Date: Stores the data and time that the movie was ordered.

Column 702—Room number: Stores the room ID for the particular guest room102 that ordered the VOD movie.

Column 704—Movie price: Stores the full price of the movie.

Column 706—Credit used: Stores the amount of credit that was utilizedtoward the full price of the movie.

Column 708—Amount billed to guest: Stores the amount actually billed tothe user (e.g., movie price minus credit used).

Column 710—Royalty due: Stores the royalty payment due to the contentprovider 126 each time the movie is played.

Column 712—Hotel margin: Stores the margin that the hotel made from themovie sale (e.g., amount billed to guest minus royalty due). Althoughnegative values appear to indicate a loss, when the hospitalityestablishment 104 can recoup the amount of the periodic room credit (andother credits) through other means, there may be no actual loss. Inother words, the hospitality establishment 104 may have already recoupedthe amount of the credit used in column 408 from the guest. For example,hotel room rates may be increased by $3.00 (or include a hidden $3.00component) to account for the daily credit given to every guest. Asexplained above, the media system 100 may also encourage guests to makeuse of profit generating and cost saving measures for the hospitalityestablishment 104 in order to generate credit as a percentage of theadditional profit and savings.

The maximum amount of credit utilized toward a received order of thepay-per-use function may also be limited to amounts other than the fullprice of the pay-per-use media function. An advantageous example of suchlimiting is illustrated with respect to the sports movie 508 shown inFIG. 5. As shown, the sports movie 508 has a required royalty of $6.00and the maximum amount of credit that the guest can utilize toward thismovie is limited such that the guest must pay the required royalty. Inthis way, the hospitality establishment 104 provides incentive forguests to utilize the pay-per-use media system but does not risk losingmoney due to covering royalty payments.

FIG. 8 is a second example of the pay-per-use history table 120 of FIG.1 that may be utilized for documenting pay-per-use VOD orders. In thisexample, the maximum credit amount that can be utilized toward an orderof a licensed content asset is limited such that the guest must pay therequired royalty. Columns of the pay-per-use history table 120 in thisexample that are similar to as previously described for FIG. 7 areunlabeled and columns storing different information include:

Column 800—Credit available: Stores the amount of credit that wasassociated with the particular room at the time the order was made.

Column 802—Required royalty: Stores the amount of the required royaltyfor the media asset ordered. Similar to as column 710 of FIG. 7.

Column 804—Maximum allowed credit usage: Stores the maximum creditamount that can be utilized toward the order such that the price of themovie minus the maximum credit amount is equal to the required royaltypayment specified in column 802.

Column 806—Amount billed to guest: Stores a billing amount that wasapplied to the guest taking into account the movie price, creditavailable, and max allowed credit usage. When the credit associated withthe particular guest room (credit available column 800) exceeds themaximum allowed credit usage amount (column 804), the amount billed tothe guest (column 806) will be equal to the required royalty payment(column 802). In other situations, the amount billed may be greater thanthe required royalty payment if the particular room does not havesufficient credit available.

Column 808—Hotel margin: Similar to column 712, this column stores themargin that the hotel made from the movie sale (e.g., amount billed toguest minus royalty due). As shown the example of FIG. 8, the hotelnever incurs a loss. At worst, the guest pays the required royalty andat best the hotel makes a profit. Limiting the maximum allowed creditusage for media assets requiring royalties is particularly advantageousfor hospitality establishments 104 that do not embed the credit intoroom rates or other service fees. In this way, the hospitalityestablishment 104 will always receive at least enough pay-per-userevenue to cover all royalty payments while still encouraging guests totry out the pay-per-use media functions in order to make use of theiraccumulating credit.

Continuing the description of the flowchart of FIG. 2, at step 222 themedia system controller 108 activates the pay-per-use media function onone or more media devices 106 of the particular guest room 102. Forexample, when the received order is for a VOD movie, this step may beperformed by streaming media packets to the in-room media devices 106from the media system controller 108, an onsite (not shown) or offsitecontent provider 126, or another source. In other examples, the mediasystem controller 108 may send a configuration message to an in-roommedia device 106 to unlock a certain feature, for example, a particularPPV TV channel on an in-room STB or PPP video game on an in-room gamingconsole.

At step 224, the media system controller 108 checks to see if the guesthas checked out of the particular guest room 102. When the guest haschecked out, control proceeds to step 226; otherwise, control returns tostep 206.

At step 226, the media system controller 108 updates the guest's userprofile 132 stored at the user profile server 128 with a remainingcredit associated with the particular guest room when the guest checksout of the particular guest room 102. In this way, unused credit issaved on the user profile 132 and may continue accumulating when theguest later checks in to a hospitality establishment 104 belonging tothe loyalty program offered by the user profile server 128.

Should the guest not belong to the loyalty program or when creditassociated with the guest's room 102 is not transferable to otherhospitality establishments 104 for any number of reasons, step 226 maybe omitted. In another configuration, rather than storing credit on theuser profile 132, the guest may be able to “cash out” by converting anyremaining credit associated with their room 102 at checkout to itsmonetary value. This configuration is particular advantageous when thehospitality establishment 104 provides media functions allowing in-roomgambling, for example.

At step 228, the media system controller 108 resets the creditassociated with the particular guest room 102 because it is now vacantand reconfigures one or more of the media devices 106 of the particularguest room 102 so that they no longer indicate a credit associated withthe room.

In another example configuration, the process described above for FIG. 2may only be activated when at step 204 the guest is determined to be amember of a particular loyalty program. This loyalty program may be foran individual hospitality establishment 104 such as an individual hotelproperty, chain of hospitality establishments 104 such as an entirehotel chain, or even across multiple hospitality establishments such asmay be offered by a media system vendor severing multiple hotel chains.

The media system controller 108 may automatically track system 100usage, present the hospitality establishment 104 with statistics, andautomatically adjust movie prices and periodic credit increases tomaximize profit or minimize loss for the hospitality establishment 104.

The media system controller 108 may cap an upper limit of current creditfor each guest room 102 such that a particular guest room 102 could atmost accumulate $20.00 of credit, for example. The media systemcontroller 108 may also cap the maximum amount of credit that can beused per movie (or other pay-per-use media function) on an individualbasis according to a specific required royalty that must be paid to athird party. For example, maximum current credit could be limited suchthat at least the royalty payments are always paid for by the guest.

Another benefit of the media system 100 is that it tends to increase theuse of the hospitality establishment's 140 pay-per-use media functions,which may further result in reduced royalty payments and/or cheaperoverall prices or increased profit due to the hospitality establishment140 being able to guarantee the content provider 126 larger numbers ofmovie views, for example.

Another benefit is that the media system 100 encourages all guests,including those that strictly refuse to pay additional in-room charges,to try out pay-per-use media functions such as watching in-room VODmovies or playing in-room PPP video games in order to make use of theiraccumulated credit. In configurations where there is no limit of howmuch credit a guest may utilize toward an order of a pay-per-use mediafunction, over time the guest may be able to accumulate enough creditsuch that there is no additional billing amount applied to the guest.This increases guest satisfaction and some price sensitive users mayenjoy the experience so much that they thereafter become willing to payto order the pay-per-use media function. By using some or all of theiraccumulated credit, guests have flexibility to choose their ownacceptable price point to order a pay-per-use media function such aswatching an in-room VOD movie.

Yet another benefit of allowing guests to save unused credit in aloyalty program is to encourage guests to continually return tohospitality establishments 104 belonging to loyalty program. For guestsnot in the loyalty program, having credit expire upon checkoutencourages the guest to either join the loyalty program or to use theircredit before they checkout. Both options are mutually beneficial to thehospitality establishment 104 and the guest. Additionally, as a guestchanges from a first room 102 to a second room 102 within a singlehospitality establishment 104, the media system controller 108 mayautomatically cause the credit associated with the guest's first room102 to “follow” the guest to the second room 102 by un-associating thecredit from the first room 102 and associating it with the second room102, and then reconfiguring media device(s) 104 in each of the first andsecond rooms 102 accordingly.

The media system 100 is also advantageous to groups of hospitalityestablishments 104 such as hotel chains in that it allows the hotels inthe chain to track statistics related to individual and aggregateguests. For example, by reviewing the amount billed to guest recorded incolumn 708 of FIG. 7 and/or column 806 of FIG. 8, each hotel in thechain can determine the optimal acceptable price that a guest or groupof guests are willing to pay for the media function. This informationmay then be automatically taken into account by when setting room rateprices and/or setting prices of other services offered at the hotel.

A hospitality establishment 104 on a tight budget may be concerned thatif guests order credit-discounted pay-per-use media functions that thesame guests would have also ordered at full price, the hospitalityestablishment 104 may be losing profit that it would have otherwiseearned. These concerns may be solved by configuring the media systemcontroller 108 (or another device in the media system 100) with a targetprofit value corresponding to average profit the hospitalityestablishment 104 used to make from the pay-per-use media functionbefore activating the above process described in FIG. 2. The mediasystem controller 108 may then monitor the average profit afteractivating the process described in FIG. 2 and adjust various parameterssuch as the periodic (e.g., daily) credit amount, pay-per-use mediafunction prices, and times of adding the periodic credit amounts tomaximize the average profit. In the event that current profits do notexceed the target profit, the controller 108 may automatically notifystaff of the hospitality establishment 104 and/or deactivate the abilityof guests to utilize credit associated with the rooms 102.

In an example configuration, a hospitality establishment includes guestrooms having media devices installed therein. Each guest room has one ormore in-room media devices for providing a pay-per-use media function. Amedia system controller dynamically associates a credit corresponding toa monetary value with a particular guest room in response to anoccurrence of a first event, configures an in-room media device of theparticular guest room to indicate the credit associated with theparticular guest room and allow a guest of the particular guest room toutilize at least an amount of the credit toward an order of thepay-per-use media function, activates the pay-per-use media function onat least one of the in-room media devices of the particular guest roomin response to a received order, and decreases the credit associatedwith the particular guest room according to the amount of the creditutilized toward the received order.

Although the invention has been described in connection with a preferredembodiment, it should be understood that various modifications,additions and alterations may be made to the invention by one skilled inthe art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention asdefined in the appended claims. For example, although the media systemcontroller 108 is illustrated in FIG. 1 within the hospitalityestablishment 104, in other configurations, the media system controller108 is positioned at another location outside the hospitalityestablishment 104 and accesses the media devices 106 via the Internet130. In another example, although the credit has been illustrated as adollar amount, other types of credit corresponding to monetary valuesmay also be utilized. Credit may be associated with a monetary value butbe represented as points, tokens, other using other currencies. In FIG.2, the process begins at step 200 in response to a first event generallydescribed as guest check-in to a particular room in the above examples;however, in other configurations, the first event causing the process tostart at step 200 may also include any of the second events describedfor steps 206 and 208. In this way, the described first and secondevents may be interchangeably utilized in different configurations; forexample, the process of FIG. 2 may start in response to a first eventbeing a first occurrence of a periodic credit increase event (such asthose described for step 206) and/or a first occurrence of anothercredit increase event (such as those described for step 208). Althoughthe invention has been described as being utilized at a hotel, theinvention is equally applicable to any hospitality related location orservice wishing to provide users with a pay-per-use media functionsincluding but not limited to hotels, motels, resorts, hospitals,apartment/townhouse complexes, restaurants, retirement centers, cruiseships, busses, airlines, shopping centers, passenger trains, casinos,etc. The exemplary user of “guest” is utilized in the above descriptionbecause customers of hospitality establishments 104 are generallyreferred to as guests; however, the word “guest” in conjunction with theinvention further includes all types of users of the media system 100whether or not they are customers. The invention is also applicable toproviding in-room credit for use with pay-per-use media functionsoutside the hospitality industry.

The various separate elements and features of the invention describedabove may be integrated or combined into single units. Similarly,functions of single elements and features may be separated into multipleunits. The flowchart of FIG. 2 may be implemented as a process executedby dedicated hardware, and may also be implemented as one or moresoftware programs executed by a general or specific purpose processor tocause the processor to operate pursuant to the software program toperform the above-described steps of FIG. 2. For example, the mediasystem controller 108 of FIG. 1 may be implemented by a computer serverhaving one or more processors 134 executing a computer program loadedfrom a storage media (not shown) to perform the steps of FIG. 2. Inaddition to a dedicated physical computing device, the word “server” mayalso mean a service daemon on a single computer, virtual computer, orshared physical computer, for example. Unless otherwise specified,features described may be implemented in hardware or software accordingto different design requirements. Additionally, all combinations andpermutations of the above described features and configurations may beutilized in conjunction with the invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system for use at a hospitality establishmenthaving a plurality of guest rooms, the system comprising: a plurality ofdevices installed in the guest rooms wherein each guest room has one ormore in-room devices for providing functions therein, the functionsincluding at least a pay-per-use function; and a system controllercoupled to and performing data communications with the devices andoperable to: dynamically associate a credit corresponding to a monetaryvalue with a particular guest room in response to a guest checking in tothe particular guest room; dynamically increase the credit associatedwith the particular guest room in response to receiving a notificationmessage tracking usage of a service offered at the hospitalityestablishment with respect to the particular guest room; configure anin-room device of the particular guest room to indicate the creditassociated with the particular guest room and allow the guest of theparticular guest room to utilize at least an amount of the credit towardan order of the pay-per-use function; activate the pay-per-use functionon at least one of the in-room devices of the particular guest room inresponse to a received order; and decrease the credit associated withthe particular guest room according to the amount of the credit utilizedtoward the received order.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein thenotification message indicates that a complimentary service offered atthe hospitality establishment was declined for the particular guestroom.
 3. The system of claim 2, wherein the complimentary service is alinen exchange.
 4. The system of claim 2, wherein the complimentaryservice is a free meal.
 5. The system of claim 2, wherein a value of thecredit increase applied in response to the notification message is apercentage of the cost savings to the hospitality establishment by notproviding the complimentary service declined for the particular guestroom.
 6. The system of claim 1, wherein the notification messageindicates that a profit generating service offered at the hospitalityestablishment has been billed to the particular guest room.
 7. Thesystem of claim 6, wherein the profit generating service is roomservice.
 8. The system of claim 6, wherein the profit generating serviceis a spa package.
 9. The system of claim 6, wherein a value of thecredit increase applied in response to the notification message is apercentage of the amount billed to the particular room.
 10. The systemof claim 1, wherein the system controller is coupled to a propertymanagement system (PMS) of the hospitality establishment and thenotification message is received from the PMS.
 11. The system of claim1, wherein the system controller is further operable to: retrieve a userprofile stored at a user profile server, the user profile correspondingto the guest and having a stored credit value; and dynamically associateat least the stored credit value with the particular guest room when theguest checks in to the particular guest room.
 12. The system of claim11, wherein the system controller is further operable to update the userprofile stored at the user profile server with a remaining creditassociated with the particular guest room when the guest checks out ofthe particular guest MOM.
 13. The system of claim 1, wherein: the guestis not a member of a loyalty program associated with the hospitalityestablishment when the guest checks in to the particular guest room; andthe system controller is further operable to update a user profile at auser profile server with a remaining credit associated with theparticular guest room when the guest checks out of the particular guestroom, the user profile corresponding to the guest as a result of theguest joining the loyalty program before checking out of the particularguest room, whereby the guest is enabled to save the remaining creditassociated with the particular guest room by joining the loyaltyprogram.
 14. A method of controlling a plurality of devices at ahospitality establishment having a plurality of guest rooms, each guestroom having one or more in-room devices for providing functions therein,the functions including at least a pay-per-use function, the methodcomprising: dynamically associating a credit corresponding to a monetaryvalue with a particular guest room in response to a guest checking in tothe particular guest room; dynamically increasing the credit associatedwith the particular guest room in response to receiving a notificationmessage tracking usage of a service offered at the hospitalityestablishment with respect to the particular guest room; configuring anin-room device of the particular guest room to indicate the creditassociated with the particular guest room; allowing the guest of theparticular guest room to utilize at least an amount of the credit towardan order of the pay-per-use function; activating the pay-per-usefunction on at least one of the in-room devices of the particular guestroom in response to a received order; and decreasing the creditassociated with the particular guest room according to the amount of thecredit utilized toward the received order.
 15. The method of claim 14,wherein the notification message indicates that a complimentary serviceoffered at the hospitality establishment was declined for the particularguest room.
 16. The method of claim 14, wherein the notification messageindicates that a profit generating service offered at the hospitalityestablishment has been billed to the particular guest room.
 17. Anon-transitory computer-readable medium comprising computer executableinstructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer toperform the method of claim
 14. 18. A system controller for controllinga plurality of devices at a hospitality establishment having a pluralityof guest rooms, each guest room having one or more in-room devices forproviding functions therein, the functions including at least apay-per-use function, the system controller comprising one or moreprocessors configured to: dynamically associate a credit correspondingto a monetary value with a particular guest room in response to a guestchecking in to the particular guest room; dynamically increase thecredit associated with the particular guest room in response toreceiving a notification message tracking usage of a service offered atthe hospitality establishment with respect to the particular guest room;configure an in-room device of the particular guest room to indicate thecredit associated with the particular guest room; allow the guest of theparticular guest room to utilize at least an amount of the credit towardan order of the pay-per-use function; activate the pay-per-use functionon at least one of the in-room devices of the particular room inresponse to a received order; and decrease the credit associated withthe particular guest room according to the amount of the credit utilizedtoward the received order.
 19. The system controller of claim 18,wherein the notification message indicates that a complimentary serviceoffered at the hospitality establishment was declined for the particularguest room.
 20. The system controller of claim 18, wherein thenotification message indicates that a profit generating service offeredat the hospitality establishment has been billed to the particular guestroom.